Day 7

States covered: 3 (MO, OK, TX)

More good driving weather today as we drove through all of Oklahoma and half of the Texas panhandle. We had been noticing that people seemed to be getting friendlier the further west we went, and today proved to be no exception. The folks at the McDonald's in Oklahoma were wonderful, and the woman at the desk of our hotel was exceedingly friendly. [The friendliness seemed to shoot up when we got to Indiana -- who knows.]

We started out with a nice continental breakfast at our hotel (free!), and we got out by about 10:30AM. We were soon over the border and into Oklahoma. Oklahoma had some very intersting highway signs. Among our favorites:

* Warning! Hitchhikers may be escaping inmates
* Do not drive into smoke
[Our questions: Why would there be smoke? Why would there be smoke on the road? Why would I drive into it? Todd's theory is wildfires.]

We drove past the world's largest McDonald's in Oklahoma [thanks for the tip, Bill!], though it was not time for lunch, so we didn't stop. We got pictures from the car though. We ended up stopping at about 1:30PM at a different McDonalds, where the hamburgers were made with care. [Stephanie's hamburger bun was perfectly formed and not squished, as the buns usually are!] During lunch a friendly little roadrunner hopped up to the planter next to our window! The manager of the McDonald's was quite excited. :-)

After eating lunch, we stopped at the gas station next door. Todd had issues with the gas because it was only 91 octane, and our car is used to getting 93 octane fuel. Stephanie was miffed because there was no pay-at-the-pump. She couldn't remember the last time she had to [gasp!] walk inside to see the attendant in order to buy gas.

Stephanie took over driving after lunch, and we headed toward Oklahoma City. We had a nice view of the downtown area from the interstate. About an hour past Oklahoma City, Stephanie panicked when she saw an Oklahoma state trooper's car facing traffic on the interstate with its lights flashing. She worried even more when she saw the officer out of his car, pointing to the ground for her to slow down. [We thought a speeding ticket was imminent, though we were only going 3 mph over the 70 mph speed limit.]

A quarter mile past the state trooper, traffic came to a screeching halt (hence his warning to slow down). We sat, completely stopped, for about five minutes before traffic started to creep along again. A bit further down the road, we saw the cause of the traffic -- a traffic accident involving two huge tractor-trailers. One was tipped over on its side in the large grassy median. Another was on the right shoulder of the road with a very mashed-in front end. We have no idea what happened in the accident except that we were glad that we weren't there when it happened.

We were both huge fans of most of the roads in Oklahoma. A lot of what we drove were toll roads ($3.50 per leg), which were immaculately maintained and had a posted speed limit of 75 mph! Even the non-toll roads in Oklahoma had a very efficient speed limit of 70 mph. We agreed that the higher speed limit was likely due to smoother road surfaces (less ice and snow here than in Boston) as well as very flat terrain and minimal curves in the road. As a result of these high speed limits, we made great time today!

As we drove into Texas, the terrain changed from highly flat (as it was in Oklahoma) to mostly flat with some beautiful variation. We both appreciated the change in scenery, though Oklahoma's rust-colored dirt made even the most flat and otherwise-boring scenery much more interesting. :-)

Driving through Groom, Texas on Interstate 40, we saw the largest cross in the western hemisphere. [It's 190 ft. tall and is visible from over 20 miles away, according to our AAA guide book.] It was very big.

We didn't have a lot of choices for places to stop in Texas. [We didn't think we would from our maps, but the actual driving confirmed it.] There is really Amarillo or nothing along Interstate 40. So we stopped in Amarillo. Todd had picked up a free hotel guide with coupons at the McDonalds in Oklahoma, so we checked into a nice La Quinta Inn with a handy coupon that saved us about $10 on the room.

Beginning about 240 miles from Amarillo, we started to see signs for "Free 72 oz. Steak!" (if you can eat the whole thing in an hour). So "The Big Texan" was briefly considered as a dinner option, but then we decided to go to Cracker Barrel instead. The Big Texan was too touristy [Bostonians, imagine a more tacky version of Hilltop Steak House!] Cracker Barrel was excellent! Todd had chicken and dumplings, and Stephanie had chicken pot pie. We shared a 32 oz. root beer, which was also wonderful. Unfortunately, we did not have room for dessert, but all of them sounded like they were well worth trying.

Following dinner, we went in search of a fuel fill-up. Unfortunately, all of the gas stations in the area had sub-standard gas. :-( The highest octane fuel that any of them had was 90. Todd was very, very sad. We settled on a Shell station [with no pay-at-the-pump -- grr!] and filled up the tank for our drive tomorrow.

Today we also noticed that Stephanie's allergies had gotten quite bad. Even with her wonderful Allegra, Stephanie was sniffling and wheezing a bit all day. Hopefully it will get better as we get further west. Todd is also sneezing quite a bit lately.

Tomorrow our distant hope is to drove through New Mexico, into Arizona, and all the way to Flagstaff, AZ for the evening. We're realizing that this may not be realistic (we think it's about 550 miles), so we're realistically shooting for Gallup, NM for our stop tomorrow evening. Depending on our drive time and other factors, we may try to squeeze in a trip to the Grand Canyon, but we'll see.